A website design can be defined as the way of delivering the web content to the website user through a web or internet browser, using the World Wide Web as the medium.

What is a Website Design?A website designcan be thought of as a collection of information targeted towards a particular audience. This information is provided to the targeted web user through text, images, videos, etc.

Elements of Website DesignThe elements of a website design are the building blocks of every website. Five basic web designelements include:

Lines and Linework

Shape

Texture

Color

Direction

Principles of Web DesignThere are also five basic principles of web design, which can be summarized as follows:

Balance: In order for the web page to appear well balanced, the principle of balance is used to distribute heavy vs. light elements on the page.

Contrast: Web pages don’t only need to have good contrasting colors, but also contrasting shapes, sizes and textures.

Emphasis: This principle involves emphasizing certain elements more vs. certain other elements on a web page.

Rhythm: This refers to the repeated patterns used within a website design in order to induce the familiarity factor.

Unity: This one refers to the grouping of like elements and dispersion of diverse elements on a web page. It is also called the principle of proximity.

Various Aspects of Web DesignA website design revolves around four basic aspects of a website, discussed here:

Appearance: This aspect concerns the appeal and attractiveness of a website.

Content: This aspect is about providing interesting, yet relevant content to the target users.

Structure: Structure is the style of a website, which should be consistent throughout.

Usability: This aspect concerns the user friendliness of the website.

Layers of Website Design & DevelopmentA website design and development has three layers:

The Content: This layer is about the matter that the website contains in the form of text and graphics. This is the reason the web user will visit the site. The content layer is defined by XHTML.

The Style: This layer takes care of the presentation of the content. This is how the content eventually appears to the website visitor. This layer is defined by CSS.

The Behavior: This layer is used for certain behaviors performed by the website when the visitor clicks a link. It is often defined by JavaScript.